


i've been having a hard time adjusting

by cascadeoceanwave



Series: cowboy like me - jaylor lavender marriage one shots [2]
Category: Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, early quarantine...we're talking like tiger king era, joe is the harry cameron to taylor's evelyn hugo, toe in quarantine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:15:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28725699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cascadeoceanwave/pseuds/cascadeoceanwave
Summary: You suppose if you had to find something good in the rubble, Joe might be it.  He flew out at the beginning of March, planning to stay for a few weeks for a job.  And, well, the world decided to fall apart a little, spinning blindly on its axis.  But when it stilled and you finally gathered the strength to stand, there he was, helping you up.
Relationships: Joe Alwyn & Taylor Swift
Series: cowboy like me - jaylor lavender marriage one shots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2061351
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	i've been having a hard time adjusting

It’s funny, the twists life takes. At this point, you’re convinced that God does things just to spite you. You’re trying hard to find the hidden meanings and silver linings to keep yourself sane, but reality has brought you back to questioning if He is even real in the first place. Reality has also brought you to your knees and forced you to pray to Him every night.

You suppose if you had to find something good in the rubble, Joe might be it. He flew out at the beginning of March, planning to stay for a few weeks for a job. And, well, the world decided to fall apart a little, spinning blindly on its axis. But when it stilled and you finally gathered the strength to stand, there he was, helping you up.

Your LA home has always been more about business. But now it’s all you have. After the initial shock settles down and you have the clarity to realize that this is going to be your reality for the foreseeable future, the two of you spend time redecorating. The guest room becomes Joe’s room. He prints pictures of his family and you help him hang them up. You buy new sheets for the bed in his favorite color. He hangs up his shirts in the closet.

He loves to draw, you learn. Sometimes, when things hurt, he’ll go quiet, sit in an armchair and sketch for hours. For you, music is your salvation. You’re excited to wake up every day and spend the day in your makeshift studio, escaping into the stories you hear in Aaron’s instrumentals. 

You and Joe may both be a little cracked, but, slowly, you make the house feel like a home. It is rarely quiet. Sometimes it’s your repetitive humming and frantic scribbling as intricate drum machines and bass riffs tickle your eardrums. Sometimes it’s Joe playing piano, practicing Chopin and Schumann, or noodling around and creating little melodies of his own. Sometimes it’s your favorite records playing in the living room. Sometimes it’s quiet chatter and the beeping of the oven timer or a sizzling in the frying pan. And, when it is quiet, it feels comfortable. Peaceful, almost.

While an outsider might mistake this for perfection or effortlessness, you are both working so hard just to stay afloat. You know that the slightest change in the current could pull you right back into old haunts and behaviors. On some days, it does. After all, the world feels like a festering wound and whenever you rub against it, it stings.

It’s been about a week of sleepless nights worrying about Mom and tour (which you’re trying to remain optimistic about). You’re sprawled out on the couch scrolling through instagram while watching the news, and Joe is sitting next to you reading. The overwhelming feeling comes in fast like a summer thunderstorm. The room turns hot and muggy and the air becomes too thick to breathe. The rising number of cases echoes inside of your head. _Fuck._ You need to get out-- you can’t let him see you like this. 

You spring up, muttering something semi-coherent about going outside, but he catches your arm before you can walk away. “Hey, are you okay?” He stands up next to you and tugs you gently so you’re facing him. Your brain is scrambled and your lungs are on fire and, _fuck,_ are you sure this isn’t COVID, or maybe a heart attack _?_ You sure as fuck feel like you’re dying. _This is a panic attack, Taylor, you’re not dying_ , you tell yourself. In a brief moment of clarity you manage to grab the remote and turn off the TV, which makes the world feel a little quieter. You sink onto the couch. Your hand goes to your chest and you can feel how fast your heartbeat is. 

You’re so concentrated on trying to breathe that you forget that Joe is hovering next to you, probably scared out of his mind. When he kneels down next to you and puts a hand on your shoulder, you flinch. “Taylor,” he says, and his voice feels so far away, “Taylor, look at me!” His voice wavers but is still calm, and you look up, taking in his panicked expression. “Can you tell me what’s going on? Do I need to call an ambulance?”

You shake your head. “No, i-it’s just a panic attack,” you gasp and see the confusion leave his eyes. 

“Oh. Okay. You’re going to be fine. I’m right here.” He moves next to you and lightly places his arm on your back. “Is this okay?” You nod. The weight of it helps bring you back to reality. _I am safe and this will pass,_ you remind yourself. You run the mantra on loop in your head as Joe strokes your back. “Do you need me to do anything else? Should I keep talking?” You nod and Joe stumbles over his words for a moment before launching into an explanation of the sci-fi thriller he’s reading. You focus on his words and the texture of the fuzzy socks you have on and the sweat dripping down your back and, slowly, your breathing returns to normal. 

He cracks a joke and you laugh. “Feeling better?” he asks.

“Yeah, I think that’s the worst of it,” you say. “Fuck, I’m sorry you had to see that.” You can’t bear to look him in the eye, so you bury your head in your hands. Your cheeks burn with red-hot shame, and the tears finally come, leaking out of your closed eyelids and turning your palms into a damp cave. 

“Don’t apologize,” he says softly, but what you hear is, “I love you,” which makes you cry even more.

“It hasn’t happened in so long. But I haven’t been sleeping well and I’m just so _scared_. I’m sorry, this week has just been really hard--”

“Hey,” Joe hands you a tissue box and you take one, gratefully. “It’s a really fucked up, crazy time. It’s okay. I definitely haven’t been feeling my best either. You need to take it easy on yourself.”

“I guess so,” you laugh through your tears. You blow your nose and laugh again at how stupid you must look. You feel so small.

“I’ll make dinner tonight. You should rest. I remember the last time I had a panic attack--well, the only time, really--was in Uni when I smoked weed for the first time. I slept for like four hours, woke up, ate a snack, and then slept for 10 more.”

This makes you laugh again, and you can feel the dark cloud beginning to lift. “Sorry for laughing at your pain but that’s, like, the best story,” you say. “I guess that's why you don’t smoke?”

“Pretty much,” Joe says. “That first time really scarred me. It mostly just makes me anxious.”

“That sucks. I’m the opposite--it’s like the one time in my life I can chill out. Bodies are so weird,” you muse, standing up from the couch. “I’m going to go take a bath. I feel gross.” 

Before you can leave, Joe pulls you into a hug. The gesture surprises you, but you relax into it. You like the way his body envelops you. You’re still pretty shaky, but it makes you feel safe and steady. 

Another week passes, and you start to feel Joe slipping away. He doesn’t have any work right now--how could he?--and he’s thousands of miles and so many time zones away from his family. You’ve learned that when things get bad for him, he withdraws into himself, slowing his world to a stop. You’re the opposite: when things get bad you step hard on the gas. 

One day, he hasn’t come downstairs by 3pm, so you decided to investigate to make sure he’s not, like, dead or something. You knock gently on his door three times, then add an offbeat fourth when the numerology aligns too much with a place you can’t handle mentally (see what you mean about being thisclose to a breakdown?). There’s silence. You knock again. Nothing.

“Joe, I’m sorry if I’m waking you up or intruding on your space, but I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” He doesn’t respond, but you hear a shuffling of bedsheets. “Joe if you don’t say something I’m coming in.”

“You can,” he clears his throat, “You can come in.” His voice is soft and heavy.

You open the door and he’s curled up in his blankets in a way that vaguely resembles a burrito. You tell him this, and he smiles a little, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Mind if I join you?” you ask. 

“Uh, sure,” he says. “Don’t feel like you have to…” you know what he means because you’ve so often been in his place, but he trails off without finishing the sentence. You lay down next to him on your back, staring up at the ceiling. You let your eyes trace over the contours of the ceiling lamp until the light hurts your eyes. You close them and watch blue dots dance around against your eyelids. You fight against the urge to fill the silence with something trite, and instead just lie there, hoping your presence is at least a little comforting. 

After a couple of minutes, Joe rolls over onto his back. The two of you lie next to each other, not touching but close, looking at the same ceiling and the same lamp. You listen to his breathing. It strikes you how intimate this is, and your heart aches with that familiar wish that you could love him in the way you pretend to. You are so similar and so different. He is soft where you are harsh, you are open where he is closed off.

When the silence grows sharp, you finally speak. “So I take it you’re not doing, like, great right now.”

He exhales a poor attempt at a laugh and agrees, “Yeah, you could say that.”

“Will it help to talk about it?”

“Probably,” he groans, “But that’s hardddddd.”

You laugh. “Tell me about it, buddy. Is it anything in particular or just,” you gesture around dramatically, “the shitty times we find ourselves in.”

“A little bit of both, I guess.” He hesitates and you fight the urge to push. “I...I think the not working was fun for a bit, but the novelty has really worn off, and I feel like I don’t have any distractions. Or maybe like I’m not doing anything worthwhile? Or anything of substance, I guess. I just...can’t be bothered. What’s the point of anything?” he laughs cynically.

“I think,” you say carefully, “that’s a very understandable feeling. Life objectively sucks right now, and no one is asking you to be stoked about it. It’s hard to just suddenly stop when you’ve been going so fast for so long.”

“That’s what she said,” he quips, and when you look over he’s smiling. 

“Joseph!” You hit his arm. “I’m trying to be fucking sentimental here! You’re ruining the vibes!”

“Hmm, maybe that’s what I’ll have to be now that I can’t act. Professional vibe ruiner.”

“Maybe,” you say. You find his hand and squeeze it. 

He grows solemn again. “It’s also been really hard not to see my family. I just...I just miss Pat and my mom, y’know?” His voice cracks and you turn his head so it’s facing you. A tear squeezes out of the corner of his eye and you wipe it away with your thumb. 

“I know,” you say quietly around the lump in your own throat. “C’mere.” You resituate so you’re sitting up and his head is on your lap. You run your fingers through his hair, gently massaging his scalp. “It’s going to turn out okay,” you whisper, “It has to turn out okay.”

Eventually, he finds the strength to get up and go shower. “For you, my lady,” you say as you hold the door for him. 

“Thank you sir,” he replies with a slight curtsy. There are shades of your past playfulness still in you. And things will turn out okay.

You go downstairs and collect the ingredients to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. When he comes down, he helps you bake. It doesn’t happen all at once, but years later, you’ll look back on those months and realize something: The redecorating and the music and the scrabble tournaments aren’t the things that turn the LA house into a home. A home is built from love. 

A home is for a family.


End file.
